It is claimed that six astronauts following the suspension of flights immediately after the Apollo 1 fire wanted to do a tour of duty in Vietnam. Has anyone heard of this and who were the six astronauts?

A group of about a half dozen decided to float the idea of taking a combat tour. It seems a somewhat half-baked idea in hindsight, but at the outset of the manned space program a stint as an astronaut was thought of as a temporary duty assignment, with the astronauts returning to formal military service after three years. Of course, astronaut training turned out to be very exhaustive and it wouldn't have been practical to cycle people around at such a rate, and in fact a tradition was established early in the Gemini program that an astronaut got a promotion after his first flight, to ensure that the astronaut corps wasn't a career sidetrack.

Deke Slayton was understanding over the proposal, though he said he wouldn't guarantee them a job when their combat tour was over. However, Lyndon Johnson and his people were bureaucratically micromanaging the air war and the pilots flying combat missions were increasingly wondering exactly what they were accomplishing. One astronaut was told: "You don't want to be here. It's a bad idea." Then the armed services blasted the idea completely out of the sky: if the astronauts came back to operational service, there was no way they would be sent on combat missions, since if they were shot down and taken prisoner, the North Vietnamese would play up the capture of an astronaut for all it was worth.

Robert Pearlman

Gene Cernan discusses this in his book, "The Last Man on the Moon."

Private talks around the Astronaut Office, bull sessions over drinks after work and long discussions during weekend barbeques hatched an idea. Why wait in Houston doing nothing? If Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon, Al Bean, myself and or any other astronaut was sharp enough to fly spaceships for NASA, we could certainly polish up our carrier landing qualifications and get into that Vietnam scrape, where our military skills could be used during the lull in the space race. Even before we took the idea to Deke, we knew he wouldn't like it, but we had to try, if for no other reason than to ease our consciences.

Deke probably thought our plan was about as dumb as anything he had ever heard, but sticking to his iron rule, he said the door was open anytime we wanted to leave, quite a courageous act on his part when faced with possibly losing a half dozen or more veteran astronauts. But, he added, did we really understand what was involved? "You can go, but I won't guarantee a job when you come back," he said.

The Pentagon hammered in the final nail. We could return to active duty if we wanted to, and even fly, but never — ever — would we be allowed into combat. Imagine the propaganda if the enemy captured an astronaut! Our scheme squelched. Vietnam would not our war.

Rick Boos

Gus Grissom contemplated it early on in the conflict.

alanh_7

Does anyone have any idea how many astronauts did serve in Viet Nam before they joined the program? I think there were quite a few. I know Charlibe Bolden, I think Ron Evans did and I think I read Hoot Gibson did a tour with VF111 or VF1 late in the war. I think there were quite a few others.

Skylon

Ron Evans was the only Apollo-era astronaut to serve in Vietnam. For the 1978 and 1980 groups virtually all the military astronauts served in Vietnam. It's more work to figure out which of them didn't (so far, it only looks like Jerry Ross did not serve in Vietnam). A couple civilians from the 1978 class were even Vietnam vets (Norm Thagard and Ox van Hoften). John Casper and Charles Veach from the 1984 class were also Vietnam vets.

alanh_7

I think you are right. I just quickly looked at the list of military pilots and crew from the TFNG's — almost all saw combat in SE Asia.

Jay Chladek

Rick Hauck I believe did a combat tour in Nam in A-6s before becoming a test pilot on the early F-14 program.

I almost forgot about the section in Geno's book. It doesn't surprise me at all that it was the Navy guys who wanted to serve in Nam considering most of their buddies were serving on the line, launching from the decks of carriers for missions. I'm sure the Air Force and Marine pilots were similar, but the Navy pilots at NASA from classes 2 and 3 seemed to be a rather tight knit bunch (with Conrad, Gordon and Bean being almost the three amigos). I can remember Gene's line from "In the Shadow of the Moon" where he regrets he didn't get to fly combat in Nam, because whether it was for the right reason or the wrong reason as to why the war was being fought, Vietnam was his war.

Now one really nice gesture that Pete Conrad's Skylab crew did was invite the recently released POWs from Nam (who had been freed only a few months earlier) to witness the launch of the Skylab workshop at the Cape and the launch of Skylab 2 mission (or the first Skylab crew). Of course the micrometeoroid shield problem with Skylab delayed that launch, so I don't know if any ex-POWs were at KSC when Skylab 2 did finally leave the pad. But in any event it was a very nice gesture for Pete's crew to extend an opportunity for many of the POWs to see what they had missed.

dom

Don't forget Vietmanese astronaut Pham Tuan - he fought in the war too!

Delta7

quote:Originally posted by Skylon:Ron Evans was the only Apollo-era astronaut to serve in Vietnam.

I believe Paul Weitz also served in Vietnam, but I could be wrong.

Skylon

quote:Originally posted by Delta7: I believe Paul Weitz also served in Vietnam, but I could be wrong.

You are correct. His official NASA bio notes a commendation medal for "combat flights in Vietnam."

Jay Chladek

To me, that would make Weitz an Apollo Vietnam vet. Even though he didn't fly to the moon, he was from that era.

Looking through other astronaut histories, I noticed that Guy Bluford flew F-4C combat missions over North Vietnam in 1966.

alanh_7

I did a little research and found that in 1965 Paul Weitz served aboard the USS Independence on a Western Pacific cruise flying A4E Skyhawks with VA72. It was a six month deployment off the coast of Vietnam.

astro-nut

To all of our NASA Astronauts who haved served in Vietnam I would like to say THANK YOU for serving our country!!